80 - And A Cake Too??

“No, you cannot wear shorts.  It’s twenty degrees outside!”  Jon informed Jake as he entered his own bedroom with the shake of his head.  The kid hated wearing long pants.  Jon could sympathize, but if his son ended up with hypothermia, Dot would never let him hear the end of it.  “Tell Romeo he can’t wear them either!”

God forbid that one of them gets to do something the other doesn’t. 

They had about twenty minutes before they needed to be on the road for David’s house.  Typically, he would consider it a pain in the ass to schlep out to Colt’s Neck for dinner, but his old friend had actually been one of the most accepting of Jon’s new wife – even before she was his wife.  The man was always full of stupid shit and would do anything for a laugh, too.  They could all use a few more laughs in their lives.

“Sheridan?” he called toward the bathroom as he stepped into the closet that could now be officially considered ‘his and hers’.  Another trip to her apartment today had netted a second load of female garments that was now integrated into his previously all-male domain.   It was a little weird, but he would get used to the brightly colored blouses and dresses hanging on the wall opposite all of his dark suits and jeans.  “Are you almost ready to go?”

When he received no answer, Jon huffed quietly as he chucked his discarded shirt toward the hamper and pulled another one off the hanger.  Sliding his arms into the gray cotton shirt, he folded back the sleeves and went to check on her as he began fastening the buttons.

“Kitten?  We’ve got to get out of here in the next fifteen minutes if we’re going to be – “  He drew up short when he found her unsuccessfully trying to brush mascara onto eyelashes wet with tears.

Fuck.  Hello pregnancy hormones.  I didn’t miss you one goddamn bit.

“What’s the matter?”

She gave him a watery smile as he curled his arms around her waist, but wasn’t deterred from her futile task.  “Nothing.  I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

“Put the wand thingy away,” he ordered settling his chin into the fuzzy curve of her shoulder.  She was wearing another one of those cashmere sweaters that she favored – this one an off-white that matched the pearl and skull choker from Jeri.  “And tell me what you’ve been reading now.”

He had found out in a very short time that she was obsessive about information gathering.  It was kind of cute, but it scared him a little too, mostly because she reminded him too much of himself.  When he got involved with something, he became fully immersed and if she got fully immersed with all the pregnancy possibilities… she would drive them both crazy with the ‘what ifs’.

“I can’t put it away until I get the damn stuff on my eyelashes,” she argued with a sniffle, wiping a smear from beneath her left eye. 

“Put it down,” he ordered again, more firmly this time.  “And tell me why you’re crying.  I know Dave isn’t anybody’s first choice of dinner companion, but he’s not that bad.”

She closed up the mascara, putting it in her makeup bag, and leaned into him with a weak laugh.  “No, he’s not that bad and I’m just having a moment.  I’ll get myself together and be fine in just a second.”

“Last chance to talk before I revert to typical don’t-give-a-shit husband status,” he warned. 

Her eyes met his in the mirror and she gave him a lopsided smile.  “It’s nothing really.  I couldn’t find where I put my panties, and when I did find them, I feel like my belly is already pooched over the top.”

His mouth opened to speak, but a quick elbow had him snapping it shut again. 

“No, I am not constipated!” she grumbled at him, making him laugh out loud and nip lightly at her exposed neck.  “But I’m only four weeks so I shouldn’t be showing already and it made me think about the alien living inside of me.  Then I heard you yelling at the boys and…”  She sniffled again with a disgusted groan.  “I got overwhelmed.  This person is growing inside me and so far it’s nothing but a nuisance and hearing you fussing at the kids made me wonder if I would ever think of it as anything different.  Eat my young, yadda, yadda…”

Jon wondered how long this was going to go on.   She was a caring woman.  Without a doubt, he knew she would love the baby, but he had no idea how to convince her of the fact.  All that love came out of nowhere at the moment when you least expected it.

“I already promised you a new car and a new house.  What other consolation prizes could you want?”

Huge green eyes slid up to his pitifully and he couldn’t help but feel bad for her.  “Maternal feelings?”

“You’re worrying too much.”  He released her with a playful smack on the butt.  “That baby is half me.  What’s not to love?  Now fix your face and let’s get outta here.”

§§§

“Come in, come in!  Mi casa es su casa and all that,” David greeted the Bongiovis with a broad smile as he held the door wide.   Dipping his head, he brushed a kiss over Sheridan’s cheek before bumping fists with one of his oldest friends.  The kids went scurrying by with mumbled greetings.  “Gabi, Colton and Lily are in the media room watching something if you guys want to join them.  You know where it’s at.”

Accepting the new Mr. and Mrs. Bongiovi’s coats while Lexi took the kids’ jackets, the first thing that David noticed was that the couple was happier than the last time he’d seen them.  This time around Jon didn’t have any reservations about folding Sheridan in his left arm while tucking his fingers in the back pocket of her jeans.  They’d barely looked at or touched one another at the Brooklyn steakhouse earlier this week. 

He turned from the hall closet and addressed the couple, “So I know it hasn’t been that long since we’ve seen each other, but damn if you don’t look a whole lot happier.”  Jon got a hearty slap on the back.  “Diamonds will do it every time, man.”

“No shit, buddy.”

“Hey!” Sheridan protested accompanying the men into the living room.  “I’m not some diamond-grubbing skank.  I can afford my own diamonds, thank you very much.”

David nudged Jon with a lift of his eyebrows. “Not only is she lovely to look at, she’s got a lovely BITE as well.”

“She doesn’t act that way with me. Must be her ingrained defense against wise asses.”

“Wise ass.  Yes, that would be David,” Lexi agreed drolly, capturing Sheridan’s hand to inspect the aforementioned diamonds.   “Very nice.”

Shooting his wife a cutting look, he stuck out his tongue and asked her to get drinks so that they could relax a bit before the housekeeper announced dinner.  Jon didn’t express a preference for his beverage, but Sheridan made a point of asking for plain water.

“I see your drinking has been curtailed,” David commented, waving at the loveseat in a silent offer of seating and plopping himself down on the adjacent couch.  “My condolences.”

“Thank you.  I think.”  The Soul Sucking Siren chuckled lightly.  “That’s why I wasn’t the life of the party last time we were together.  I was still… shell shocked, having just found out the day before.”

That made sense.  It definitely qualified as ‘problematic’ in the real life shit Jon spoke of at the bar that night.  Especially if the SSS had offered any resistance to whatever her man’s immediate solution had been.  Jon was a class-A control freak and, when things didn’t go his way, he pouted.

“Well that explains why you looked like you’d bite the old man’s arm off if he got close to you,” he teased her with a wink. 

Jon scowled at him,  belligerently snarling, “Who you callin’ old?  Has your senility already set in?  Your birthday comes before mine, muthafucka.”

Completely unfazed, David waved him off with a pooh-pooh gesture.  “Semantics.  You and I both know I’m at least a decade younger at heart, you stodgy old geezer.”

“Yeah, you can stay acting like a young punk because I’m the one gettin’ gray hair making us a living,” the old man bellyached before turning to Sheridan.  “I’m gonna go help Lexi.  Dipshit here has probably told her I drink Kool-Aid just to amuse himself.”

Holding up a single finger and shaking it side to side, he stated definitively, “You don’t drink the Kool-Aid Mein Fuhrer.  You’re the one who brews it, has it bottled and distributes it via pheromone transfer to unsuspecting female concert-goers.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake...”

Sheridan was giggling with amusement as her husband brushed a kiss over her lips, warning her not to listen to a word the lunatic had to say while he was gone.  As a parting gift, he threw a Jersey salute up behind his back, to which David bowed with a flourish.

“Your mind is dulling, Bongivoi!  It took TEN whole minutes to get that finger in the air.”  Blond curls shook sadly as he adopted a look of sympathy for Sheridan.  “He’ll have Alzheimer’s – or erectile dysfunction – before you know it.  The bright side is he won’t remember that he can’t get it up.  But you might.”

“You are certifiably insane,” she snorted with surprised laughter.  “Totally bonkers.”

He shrugged and kicked one leg over the other, letting his foot swing carelessly over the hardwood floor.  “Perhaps.  But not bottling all that craziness into a mold that fits social convention keeps my blood pressure nice and low.”

“Well...”  The pretty green eyes went somber and her laugh lines turned upside down when she earnestly leaned toward him. “I don’t know what happened when Jon shared our news with you yesterday, but thank you.  It had been a long, trying day at that point and whatever you said took some of the weariness out of his face.  I appreciate that more than you can know so, if there’s anything I can ever do for you or your family, all you have to do is ask.”

He had no idea why everybody painted this woman as some Satanic force of nature.  From everything he’d seen and experienced, she was just a nice girl who happened to have a hot body and a pretty face.  Since when were those things crimes?

“Babe, you don’t owe me anything.  Jon and I have been down a lot of roads together and he’s pulled my ass out of the fire more than once.  Any chance I get to pick him up a little, I do.  That’s just the way family is.”

She took a deep breath and nodded.  “Okay – “

“No.  Wait just a minute.”  One palm in the air held off any further words.  “I want to make sure you understand.  Jonny married you.  Even if I didn’t like you – which I do – it wouldn’t matter.  You’re his family, you’re my family.  End of discussion.”

“It’s unfortunate not everyone feels that way.”

It was unfortunate.  It was a damn shame in fact. 

“I don’t know what the hell is up Richie’s ass, but that’s how us Jovi boys have always rolled.  Tico will tell you the same thing when you meet him, and so will Hugh and Bobby.”

Expertly tinted blonde waves swished over a sweater that was nearly the same color as her hair as she shook her head in bewilderment.  “I have no idea why he’s determined to hate me, but if it affects his relationship with Jon, then I’ll do whatever is necessary to fix it.”

There wasn’t much that David could see that might fix Richie’s frame of mind other than a good old-fashioned attitude adjustment.  Certainly nothing that Sheridan should be ‘fixing’.  If anything was going to mend the ugly rift between the boss and the guitarist, it would just be time. 

“Don’t do anything.  Richie’s actually a damn softie under it all.  Give it a while.  If it doesn’t fix itself, I’ll see if I can’t get his head screwed on straight.”

“David – “

He thought the woman was going to cry the way her eyes got so huge and glassy with gratitude.  Tears were not his thing. 

“Tut, tut, tut!”  He once again threw his hand in the air, nipping that nonsense in the bud.  “No gushing.  You’ll embarrass me.  Just fawn over the Super Sperm cake that I had made for you and Jon and we’ll call it even.”